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Next month, a few of our friends will be setting off on a 650 mile adventure to circumnavigate Wales by sea kayak.

This back-to-basics trip using only will-power, kayaks and tents is to help support the work of the Cardigan Bay Marine Wildlife Centre. We've got onboard and sent them some merino to keep them warm at night and cool when battling the tide. You can get involved by donating to the cause and helping everybody downstream by supporting the great work of CBMWC.

They will be leaving Newport, Pembrokshire next month and heading North to the wild waters of Anglesey. When they reach Chester, the route heads inland using the canal systems to make their way down past Gloucester and back to the sea. Their journey back to Newport concludes through the tidal races of Pembrokeshire and a well earned pat on the back!

Spread the word and watch out for updates from the boats via podcasts on brainfood soon.

With 17 weeks to go, we need to keep up the pace to hit the £25,000 target by December. If you've bought a ticket or two, you're in the running for £2000 of howies clothes (obviously), so let your friends know tonight over a drink, now with a tweet or on your ride home and let's smash the target.

If you haven't got involved yet, there's a book of tickets going out in every order, or you can get them directly from SAS.

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Since we last blogged about the SAS raffle, the target this year has been set at £25,000 - not £20,000.

SAS are swinging by at the end of the week to drop off some books of tickets and we'll need your help to sell them to friends and family. It's not all hard graft though. I reckon that the final list of prizes should wet your appetite and help make the sales needed to reach our ambitious target.

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Photographer Jurgen Freund has spent the last 18 months photographing the beautiful underwater world known the Coral triangle (an area covering the Philippines, Malaysia & Indonesia, down to Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands) as part of WWF's Blue Mile campaign (-that's the WWF as in the 'panda' one, not the Wrestling one....)

The aim of the campaign is to highlight how beautiful and diverse marine life is, reminding people about the effects climate change and pollution will have on this very vulnerable environment and the creatures that call it home.

There will be a fund raising event held by WWF in North London on september the 4th where people are encouraged to swim or paddle one mile, but they want people all up and down the county to hold their own events too. Click here for more information on that.

SAS (surfers against sewage) are also running their fundraiser too, click here to take a look at Ade's blog from a little while ago and see how you can help on shores a little closer to home.

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For those of you who don't know, a good friend of mine, Gavin Strange has been filming BÖIKZMÖIND over the last year. It's a documentary film about riding fixed gear bikes in beautiful Bristol. The film is in progress right now and will premiere 20.08.2011 on the big Screen at the Millennium Square. (a must, so get out your diaries!)

Last Sunday saw about a hundred plus riders get together for the final bit of filming, I chose to do this in a full vintage rabbit costume.

It was an epic day which i wont forget in a hurry! I climbed Park street still suited up in the costume which was my favourite moment, sweaty is an understatement! That along with the mass take over of the Clifton suspension bridge as the sun set, are going to be hard to beat.

Thanks to everyone that came, as I met so many nice people. It has made me love Bristol just that little bit more!

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Hands up if you've heard of Muckle Flugga!
To eliminate show-offs, could you also place St. Agnes, Soay or Ness Point on the map?

I certainly could not have managed this until recently, yet they are all in our country. They are the north, south, east and west extremes* of Great Britain**.

I always encourage people to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats at some point in their lives to get a better understanding of the place we live in. Nick Hand went one step further in his exploration, cycling a full lap of Great Britain.

But even he didn't make it to the poetic-sounding Muckle Flugga. Our country is full of beautiful, surprising places and we should make the most of these long, lingering summer days to go somewhere we have never been. You don't even need to go far to do this: I bet there is somewhere interesting within 15 miles of your house that you have never been to.

I'm feeling particularly fervent about this at the moment. Here's why...

Years ago I stood at John O'Groats, tired but jubilant, and gazed out to sea (or, more accurately, into the fog). I had conquered Britain by bike and I could go no further.

I was wrong.

For last week I was in the Shetland Isles, more than 100 miles further north than "J O'G". This time, as I stood outside my tent in the soft solstice midnight light I looked at the lighthouse on Muckle Flugga and the tiny islet of Out Stack, I was at the top of Britain. And I realised that only now was I beginning to realise how little I know of my own country.

My tent was pitched on a patch of flat green grass like a billiard table. A metre away from the door was the cliff edge, swirling with puffins and scores of other seabirds swirling above the crashing turquoise waves far below. Not only was it one of the best camping spots I have enjoyed in Britain, it was one of the best in the world. You don't need much time or money or expertise to experience a night's camping like that. You just need to go do it.

I have not yet been to St. Agnes, Soay, Ness Point, Rockall, or any number of other super places. But I certainly will do. It's a lifetime's work to know your own country, and there's no better time to start than right now.

* - pedant alert: I have not included the Channel Islands because they are Crown Dependencies, not constituent parts of the United Kingdom and Rockall is not internationally recognised. There are a couple of other pedantic details too, but summer is not the time to be discussing stuff like this!
** - apologies to Scottish, Welsh, Shetland and Scillian separatists!

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Hugo and Pete from SAS came up to our Cardigan HQ to build a plan about us (that includes you) helping with their annual fund raising raffle.

howies are giving away the headline prize and we will be asking you our whole database to sell tickets to help hit their target of £20,000. Last year they raise £12,000, so we have a mountain to climb this time.

As well as howies kit, there will also be hand made wooden boards,

These are some reasons to get involved;

90p in every pound raised goes to fighting their causes.

They directly lobby industry with solutions to the problems they are causing.

Their support comes from many other users of the coast. Walkers, runners, body boarders, kite surfers, sun bathers, swimmers and dog walkers.

They are working as hard to prevent marine pollution, climate change and litter as much as sewage.

They are have a network of reps all over the UK who give their time to campaign, raise money and awareness and get hand on help to beach clean.

So when the time comes all we ask of you is to sell a few raffle tickets to your friends and send the cash to SAS and we will give you regular updates on where we are, Blue Peter style.

And if you can spread the word over your social network to spread the word, we have the potential to give them the cash to campaign the hardest they ever have done.